Explore the published and forthcoming works of Maxwell James Bennett

From the Porch

A detective puzzled by a grisly crime.
A lighthouse keeper obsessed with a distant light.
A man who envisioned a royal palace, now standing just outside of it.

From the Porch is a haunting and philosophical collection of stories and poems that invites readers to step onto a metaphorical porch and look outward.

Through 15 works of fiction and poetry, Maxwell James Bennett moves through horrors, histories, and allegories that touch on violence, beauty, faith, society, memory, and the quiet distance between what we love and what we outgrow. Lighthouses, villages, factories, castles, and fractured histories become places of meditation, each one asking the reader to sit with an idea until it becomes strange, vulnerable, and alive.

Behind the book

From the Porch grew from the image of the porch as a place of witness — a space between the home and the world, memory and change, inheritance and rebirth. The book moves through family, violence, history, love, and self-reflection, asking what we carry, what we repeat, and what it means to finally step inside.

From the Pages

Until Love Tells Me So

Until Love Tells Me So is a debut collection of poems about love, memory, intimacy, distance, and becoming. Moving through affection, heartbreak, reflection, and self-discovery, the collection lingers in the moments that remain after love changes shape.

Behind the book

Until Love Tells Me So began as a way of writing through love, memory, and the difficult space between holding on and letting go. The collection moves through intimacy, distance, longing, heartbreak, and reflection, tracing the quiet aftermath of love and the way it continues to shape a person even after it changes or disappears.

A Glimpse Inside